Guest post by Shannon Kelley: "Don't trust them. You can't trust any of them."

"Don't trust them" they told me.  "You can't trust any of them" they said
as we talked about Haitian men on my first trip to Haiti years ago.  They
went on to paint a picture of men who hated commitment and family, wanted
to sleep around all the time, and was out looking for their next prey at
all times.

Years later I would enter a little village to live among Haitian's and
"fight for families".  I went in with our assumptions of what a "real
family" should look like based on my "American way".  I went in with
assumptions of Haitian men, broken families, and women scorned. I listened
to all the surveys, statistics that only look at external factors, and
opinions of people who come to Haiti for a week and think they know the
culture.  I forgot to listen first to Haitians. I forgot to find the
beauty and truth from the source.

Then I fell in love here.  With a Haitian.  Little by little I realized
that maybe my assumptions were wrong. About family structures here, about
love, about marriage.   How my assumptions placed unfair judgement on
people that I said I was trying to help.  I realized that maybe Haiti
could actually teach me some things about love and family and marriage.
And it has. More than I would have ever thought. It has taught me how to
love myself too.

Several months ago I woke up in the middle of the night with this giant
idea and passion to know more.  I don't want to listen to the reports that
look at external factors of only hardship and poverty and decide they know
families or relationships here-I want to hear it from Haitians.  I want to
know what love looks like in Haiti.  What Haitian's think about love,
families, relationships, and marriage.  I want to sit with people and hear
their stories and their heart.  I want to know what wives here struggle
with, what pressures men feel to provide for their family, what are there
worries and beliefs, and what teenagers dream about when they think of
love and marriage.  I want to know how relationships work here.  And I
believe that knowing more can actually help us serve Haitian's in a better
way.

Thus, Love in Haiti was born.  It is a relational research project that
asks Haitian's what love, marriage, and family mean to you and then also
compares that to reality.

We will be sitting down with 5,000 Haitians and asking them just this.
Our results, the stories we hear, will be shared on our Facebook page and
written in a book that will be published after.

This is a project of my heart and I would be honored to have you come
alongside! We are currently in need of funding so that we can pay for our
research assistants.  You can donate here at youcaring.com/loveinhaiti .
Even if it is $5 or $10, that makes a huge difference in the life of one
of our assistants!

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